The Sequester

Saturday

Apr 6, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Webster's says sequester means "confiscate, divert to satisfy claims against its owner." Suppose you wanted to lose weight, but had a Big Mac, fries and a Coke staring you in the face.You could take your need to diet seriously and say, "No thanks, I'll have a salad." Or you could decide to reduce the Big Mac meal by 2 percent pushing aside a couple of French fries and gobbling up the rest. That's "sequestering."Look at it another way. If you paid your son $10 a week allowance, and he asked for $20 a week. You told him it would be $15 a week. He then goes around telling his friends that you "cut" his allowance. Although he is getting more than he previously was, he still considered it a "cut." Ridiculous, don't you think?The White House, with a big assist from the sympathetic media, has done all within its considerable powers to make it seem like sequestration means the end of the world. If all you've heard is its side, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Mayans were right after all — just off by a couple of months on their prediction of the apocalypse.This political panic needs a little common sense. In the past decade, federal spending has exploded from a $2 trillion budget in 2002 to a $3.5 trillion budget in 2012 — a 75 percent increase.Over the next 10 years, the budget is projected to grow another 69 percent to $6 trillion. The sequester barely taps the brakes on this runaway spending, still allowing a 67 percent increase over the next 10 years. President Barack Obama's trillion-dollar deficits mean that we can't just skip a couple of fries. We have to put government on a true spending diet. Our children's future is too important to wait any longer.BILL CLEMONSLakeland